Train attendance is set to break a record this summer, according to SNCF, which notes an increase in reservations of almost 10% compared to 2019.
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Each year, the pivotal weekend between July and August is the busiest on the roads and in transport, to the point of having earned a nickname: the crossover. Unsurprisingly, this is announced by the forecasts of Bison Futé and the SNCF for the weekend of Friday 29, Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 July.
On the roads, Bison Futé classified the day of Friday red in the direction of departures throughout France, and red also for returns in the South-East quarter of the country. On Saturday, all of France will be in black in the direction of departures, and in red in that of returns.
On Sunday, only the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region will be classified red, in the direction of departures only. These are the most severe forecasts of the whole year, as illustrated by the 2022 calendar of Bison Futé.
In the trains, Friday should be “the busiest day of the summer”, announces SNCF Voyageurs, which expects 400,000 travelers in the TGV and Intercités. Over the entire weekend, they will be a million, and a third of the TGVs are full, says the company. This is slightly less than the weekend of July 8, 9 and 10 (1.3 million) and the July 14 bridge (2 million in four days).
More broadly, the company plans to register “record attendance” this summer: the number of reservations at the end of July is 10% higher than that observed in 2019 at the same period (before two years disrupted by Covid-19). More than 18 million TGV and Intercités tickets were sold for July and August, a total which reaches 22 million by adding online sales of TER tickets.